Engaging the New Gifted Mind: Middle School Edition

Adolescents, as they journey from the children they were to the young adults they will be, are at a sometimes treacherous and sometimes euphoric stage of development. Giftedness, with its overexciteabilities and intensities - and its divergent and creative drives - makes adolescence all the more complex to navigate.

In the year ahead, Minnetonka will recommit itself to its gifted adolescents by launching a new, comprehensive middle school High Potential Service model. Our model addresses three core drives of gifted middle schoolers:

• ·         Need for Growth (academic and personal)
• ·         Need to Wonder (authentic, relevant, challenging work)  
• ·         Need to Belong (acceptance by others and self)

Absolutely critical to meeting the “Growth” needs of gifted adolescents, is the offering of honors level and accelerated coursework in nearly all core classes. Such leveled classes provide High Potential students necessary rigor on a daily basis. This practice is well-established in Minnetonka, and we continue to add and refine advanced learning opportunities.

But what about the need to wonder? To belong?

New this year, identified High Potential students will participate in a once-per-week pull-out class for one period.  During this period, High Potential teachers will facilitate learning and connecting by setting before students relevant, high-interest projects that allow for choice and emphasize Sir Ken Robinson’s “Four C’s.” Lessons are active, with students “doing” vs listening. Examples include the “Future City” challenge, "A Day in the Life" project, and a "Genius Hour" process.  Through these projects, students learn novel content for authentic purposes.  They learn about themselves and reflect on their personal development of the “Habits of Mind.”  Projects lead to wondering.  Wondering leads to engagement.  Engagement is a requisite for real learning.

As described on the Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted (SENG) website, “…The process of identity development in intellectually gifted children and adolescents is complicated by their innate and acquired differences from age-peers. To be valued within a peer culture which values conformity, gifted young people may mask their giftedness and develop alternative identities which are perceived as more socially acceptable... Gifted children and adolescents need the opportunity to work and socialize with others of similar abilities and interests if they are to grow towards self-acceptance.”

Our new pull-out model provides consistent, meaningful opportunities for students to connect with intellectual peers.  Through Socratic Seminars and discussions analyzing complex issues, students will learn about one another and themselves.The instructional design of our lessons, however, will be flexible.  As differentiation guru Carol Ann Tomlinson reminds us, gifted “…adolescents share common affective needs, but experience them in differing ways.”  One size won’t fit all, nor should it.  Students will be in the driver’s seat for this new High Potential Seminar.

Adolescence is a tumultuous and vivid time in the life of a gifted child.  Minnetonka has reinvigorated and expanded its middle school programming to more fully support the intellectual, social, and emotional development of our High Potential students.